Window not coming down upon entering

[Dave S.]

Originally Posted by Viper5

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

I went to a local bike shop to try and get one of those brake adjustors, but they didn't have what I wanted. I'm not sure how exactly Dave was going to hook it up that way. So then I went to autozone to see if they had anything that could grab the wire and pull it together closer. Nothing. I decided to go back home and take it apart again and see if there was anything further I could do. I noticed that the wire was still a bit looser than I had wanted, so in order to tighten it further, I had to take that spring piece out of the socket on the topside to fit another ziptie in. It seemed like it had a decent tightness to it so I put it back together with the sacrifice of having that piece not go in the slot it was designed to and it works perfectly for now. Like it was new and mimics the drivers side.

Thank you so much everyone for your help!

Glad it worked for you also.
I was careful not to pull any of the outer sleeves from the holes they go into at their ends because I wanted to make sure the cable didn't chafe against anything. The cable end acts a guide to ensure the cable has a straight shot to the wheel in each corner and to the regulator driver assembly in the middle. I found that you can use a single wire tie on any given end and up two on the spring end that goes into the regulator. Of course the lower front corner (behind the door speaker) is the easiest to get to.
I also didn't want to disable the spring mechanism where the cable goes into the bottom of the regulator as it absorbs a shock load when the window hits the stops that limit the window travel. I used wire tie spacers to pre-load the spring a bit more.
In any event, the investment to try this fix is so minimal it's worth it. If it doesn't work you are only as bad off as you were before.

[Dave S.]

I was thinking about adding something to the system at one corner along these lines so that as the cable stretches you could easily adjust it to take out the slack. My only concern is that you can fit it onto the existing outer sheath end and that it won't make contact with the cable causing it to chafe over time:

http://www.amazon.com/BRAKE-LEVER-CABLE-ADJUSTER-ACTION/dp/B001APWR00

It's importat that the adjuster barrell and the locking nut are both slotted so you can install them onto the existing cable and sleeve. It would be ideal if the existing outer sleeve end would fit into the adjuster barrell without modification.

I'm going to try this and see if it works as a more "engineered" fix for this extremely annoying and totally unacceptable problem with the window regulator design.
My belief is that if you can keep the cable adjusted, then the regulator will not fail in the long run as the drive mechanism won't slip and fray the cable. Not sure if that's a correct assumption, but again, once you have this problem, for $4 and 30 minutes of your time, why not give it a try.

Dave S.

[Viper5]

Let me know if that part works well. Thanks again for your help.

[deliriousga]

Originally Posted by Yoadrian

Hi. I believe my passenger side regulator has bitten the dust. The window has had a really tough time going up for the past two weeks and it would start to drop down after getting halfway up, even while I was holding the button down to raise the window. Last night, I had to actually manually pull up on the window to get it all the way up.

How difficult would you rate the do it yourself job of repalcing the regulator with the assistance of a Bentley manual? I know this is somewhat subjective, but to give you an idea, I am not very mechanically inclined...

Stealership wants $670 for the job. LOL

Sorry for the delay, I'm not getting email notification for some reason. It's not very difficult. The manual does a good job of walking you through it. Just make sure you have a couple of the clips that attach the door panel on hand in case one or two of them snap when you take it off.

[Bellster]

Just fitted my new window regulator [well second hand out of 03 996] $140 US posted to my front door, in right hand side, my drivers side. Very happy :dance: only 1.5 hour start to finish now have a working window put one big smile on my dial.. out of ten job is a 4 if you have all info....

[sb01box]

Originally Posted by Viper5

I'm not sure what you mean by "wear on the sleeving," but I don't see any wear on any parts I was working on. If you are having the same problem as I was and Dave was in regards to the window not fully coming down for the top clearance but all other functions working properly, then you probably just need to tighten it the wire.

Sorry about this late response, what I way trying to ask by saying"wear on the sleeving" is compression of the sleeve (the opposite of stretching of the cable). This would affect the system the same as the inner cable stretching.

[litlchi]

So my window on the driver side of my 2003 Boxster S was also not going down enough when I tried to open the door so I tried the zip tie method below and it worked like a charm. I used the exact same setup as shown in the picture with two on the cable close to the spring and one on the lower green portion of the cable. However, after I finished and reassembled everything, now my airbag light is on. I'm assuming it's my side airbag and I swear I reconnected the one connector prior to reinstalling the panel. Does anybody else have an idea what might be going on? I did disconnect the battery during the disassembly of the door, reconnected it when I had one the window motor and regulator in view, and then disconnected it again when I reassembled the door. If nobody is sure, I'll likely break down the door again to check the connection but wanted to see if there might be another reason...